HOMERIC  PALACE 


U8RAKY 


THE 

HOMERIC   PALACE 


NORMAN   MORRISON  ISHAM,  A.  M. 


ARCHITECT. 


A.  A.  VAZAKAS, 
Teacher  of  English, 


PBOVIDBNCE: 

THE  PRESTON  AND  ROUNDS  COMPANY. 

J89S 


COPYRIGHT.  1898 
BY 

HONVAKD  w.  PRESTON 


PRESS   OK 

K  .     I. .     F  K  K  E  M  A  N     .•.      SONS. 
PROVIDENCE.  It.  I, 


CONTENTS. 


PAIiE. 

INTRODUCTION, 1 

I.    THE  LOCATION, 6 

II.    THE  DEFENCES, 10 

III.  THE  OUTER  GATE,       16 

IV.  THE  OUTER  COURT,     ......  19 

V.    THE  INNER  GATEWAY, 23 

VI.    THE  INNER  COURT, 26 

VII.    THE  MEGARON, 32 

The  Aithousa, 35 

TheProdomos, 39 

The  Great  Hall  or  Megaron  Proper,  40 

VIII.    THE  WOMEN'S  APARTMENTS,     ...  49 

IX.    THE  BATH  KOOM, 52 

X.    THE  SECOND  STORY, 53 

XI.    THE  PASSAGE  AND  THE  POSTERN,      .  55 
XII.    THE  ARMORY,  THE  TREASURY,  AND  THE 

THOLOS,       57 

XIII.    THE  APPEARANCE  OF  THE  PALACE,    .  58 

BIBLIOGRAPHY, 63 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


I Myceme. 

II.     ........     J       .     .      Tiryns. 

Ill Troja. 

IV Arne,  with  comparative  plans. 

V Ramparts. 

VI. Gates. 

VII Terraces. 

VIII Later  Gates  for  Comparison. 

IX.     .     .     .      The  Great  South  Gate  at  Arne. 

X.     ...     Four  Stages  in  Palace-building1. 

XI.     Bird's-eye  View  of  the  Palace  at  Tiryns. 


PREFACE. 


This  book  is  an  attempt  to  gather  together  the 
main  facts  about  the  palace  of  the  Homeric 
time,  and  to  explain  them  by  illustrations. 

The  facts  have  been  collected  from  various 
sources,  which  are  indicated  in  the  bibliography 
and  the  foot  notes,  so  that  those  who  wish  to 
make  a  minute  investigation  can  supplement 
the  general  survey  here  given. 

The  plates,  many  of  them,  have  been  redrawn 
from  sources  which  are  given  upon  them.  I  take 
this  opportunity  of  thanking  Professor  Manatt 
for  permission  to  use  some  of  his  illustrations. 
The  drawings  are  grouped  in  such  a  way  as 
to  facilitate  and  invite  comparison,  not  only  be- 
tween the  different  examples  of  the  Mycenaean 
time,  but  between  those  examples  and  the  forms 
in  use  in  other  periods,  later  Greek,  Roman, 
and  even  Mediaeval.  This  will  be  found  a  fas- 
cinating, as  well  as  a  valuable  study. 


VI 11  PREFACE. 

The  time-honored  and  much  copied  plan  of 
Tiryiis.  by  Dr.  DorpiVld,  appears  in  a  new  light. 
I  have  put  it  into  perspective,  as  it  would  ap- 
pear if  seen  from  a  great  height,  and  have  left 
one  half  as  a  plan,  and  shown  the  other  as  a 
section  and  an  elevation  combined.  I  have 
made  a  similar  use  of  one  of  the  great  gates  at 
Arne. 

While  the  standpoint  from  which  the  book  is 
written  is  that  of  an  architect,  it  is  also  the 
standpoint  of  a  lover  of  Homer,  and  I  hope  that 
the  work  will  be  of  use  to  all  students  of  the 
great  poems,  as  well  as  to  those  who  like  to  fol- 
low the  progress  of  domestic  architecture  and 
the  history  of  fortification. 

NORMAN  M.  ISHAM. 
Providence,  R  I.,  Oct.  13,  1898. 


THE  HOMERIC  PALACE. 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  Homeric  king  was  a  man  of  flocks 
and  herds,  of  the  many-clodded  field,  and 
of  the  swift  black  ship.  These  aspects  of 
his  life  denote  at  once  the  sources  of  his 
wealth  and  of  his  danger.  As  he  lived  in 
a  state  of  society  quite  well  organized, 
that  wealth  was  never  entirely  patriarchal. 
The  number  of  his  acres  and  the  herds 
that  fed  on  them  may  indeed  have  formed 
the  basis  of  his  riches,  but  his  black  ship 
brought  him  booty  as  well  as  the  products 
of  other  lands ;  and  the  trading  people,  half 
merchants,  half  kidnappers  and  pirates, 
gave  him  in  exchange,  perhaps  for  cattle, 
wool  or  slaves,  the  works  of  cunning  men, 
of  Hittites,  Phenicians  and  Egyptians. 


•_'  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  original 
source  of  it,  the  splendor  which  that 
wealth  enabled  the  greater  chiefs  to  dis- 
play, was  as  Homer  records  it,  something 
marvelous,  so  marvelous  that  only  the 
discoveries  of  the  last  twenty  years  have 
relieved  the  poet  from  the  suspicion 
\\hu-li  Thucydides  once  cast  upon  him, 
that  he  embellished  matters  by  his  poetic 
art 

This  wealth  not  only  attracted  from 
without  such  itinerants  as  were  willing  to 
sell  wThat  themselves  or  others  had  made, 
but  it  fostered  schools  of  artists  and  crafts- 
men at  home,  so  that  the  riches  of  the 
Homeric  princes  were  not  of  crude  gold  or 
silver  but  of  all  articles  of  luxury,  rich 
stuffs,  amber  and  metals  wrought  in  ways 
which,  as  the  poet  describes  them,  men 
till  lately  did  not  believe  possible. 

With  this  treasure,  then,  greater  or  less, 
according  to  his  station,  whether  he  were 
wide-ruling  Agamemnon  or  the  much-en- 

O  O 

during    lord    of    rocky    Ithaca,    the    king 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  3 

stood  in  no  little  danger.  He  needed 
some  protection  from  those  neighbors  who, 
as  fond  of  fighting  as  he  was  himself,  had 
none  of  his  nice  notions  as  to  the  rights  of 
others,  or,  at  least,  had  none  that  were 
nicer  than  his. 

We  find,  therefore,  that  during  the 
Mycenaean  period,  the  life  of  which  no  one 
seriously  doubts  that  the  Homeric  poems 
reflect,  though  they  are  at  a  greater  or  less 
distance  from  it,  each  chieftain  or  each 
king  has  his  own  particular  stronghold. 
He  seats  himself  on  some  prominent  crag 
and  gathers  around  him  his  immediate 
family  and  dependents.  In  the  valley 
below,  and  on  the  slopes  of  the  hill,  dwell 
the  different  clans  of  the  great  sept  which 
the  king  rules.  Each  clan  cultivates  the 
land  which  is  held  in  common.  In  a  sudden 
attack  they  take  refuge  within  their  lord's 
citadel,  or  hill  fortress.  In  time  they  grow 
too  numerous  for  the  ramparts  to  contain, 
and  then  they  wall  in  a  space  at  the  foot 
of  the  hill  and  make  this  their  defence. 


4  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

This  last  enclosure  can  hardly  be  called  a 
city.  The  epithet  "  wide-wayed  "  applied 
to  Mycenae  means  nothing  in  our  sense  of 
the  words.  Tsouutas  and  Manatt  apply  it 
simply  to  the  wide  streets  between  the 
villages  of  the  different  clans.  The  lesser 

O 

chiefs,  or  those  who  lived  in  either  the 
<|iiieter  or  the  more  inaccessible  districts, 
may  have  had  no  gatherings  around  the 
bases  of  their  eyries,  but  Agamemnon  and 
Priam  looked  forth  on  such  a  wide-wayed 
city  at  their  feet. 

Let  us  attempt  to  gain  a  clear  idea  of 
these  strongholds — palaces  we  call  them, 
though  castle  would  be  a  better  term — to 
reconstruct  for  ourselves,  from  such  sources 
as  are  open  to  us,  a  typical  royal  dwell- 
ing of  the  Homeric  time,  its  situation, 
approaches  and  defences,  its  internal  ar- 
rangements, construction  and  decoration, 
and,  finally,  its  external  appearance. 

There  are  two  ways  of  doing  this.  One 
is  to  study  the  remains  of  the  palaces 
or  strongholds  which  have  come  down  to 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  5 

us,  at  Troy,  Mycenae,  Tiryns,  and  at  Gha 
or  Arue  in  Lake  Copais.  The  other  is 
to  compile  the  typical  palace  from  the 
descriptions  handed  down  to  us  in  the 
Homeric  poems.  It  is  clear  that  -neither 
of  these  methods  will  be  satisfactory  if 
used  alone.  We  must  combine  the  two. 
It  will  not  be  enough  laboriously  to  work 
out  a  plan  from  the  poems  and  then  to 
compare  it  with  the  existing  remains.  We 
must  check  our  work  at  each  step  in  the 
planning,  and  this  is  really  the  important 
test.  The  final  assemblage  of  the  parts  is, 
except  in  a  general  way,  never  the  same  in 
any  two  cases,  and  it  would  be  as  foolish 
to  think  that  the  plan  was  wrong  because, 
after  we  had  accounted  for  every  room  or 
court  which  Homer  mentions,  it  did  not 
exactly  resemble  that  of  the  Tirynthian 
palace,  as  it  would  be  to  condemn  a 
restoration  of  the  Chateau  Gaillard  which 
did  not  present  the  same  plan  as  the  Tower 
of  London. 

We  will  begin,  then,  with  the  site  of  the 


6  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

stronghold.  We  will  terrace  its  summit, 
and  plan  its  approaches.  So  far  we  will 
be  following  the  ruins.  We  will  then, 
following  the  works  of  Dorpfeld,  Joseph, 
of  Tsountas  and  Manatt,  and  of  Noack1 
cull  from  the  poems  the  character,  and  as 
far  as  possible,  the  environment  of  each 
pair  of  the  palace  proper.  As  we  go 
through  this  process  we  will  compare  each 
added  part  with  the  corresponding  part  of 
the  palace  or  palaces  which  now  exist. 
At  the  end  of  our  work  we  shall  have  a 
typical  plan  which,  while  it  will  not  be 
exactly  like  that  of  any  ruin  now  known, 
will  yet  show  a  strong  family  resemblance 
to  them  all. 

I. THE    LOCATION. 

On  the  rugged  soil  of  Greece,  whether 
of  Hellas  proper,  of  the  Asiatic  coast  or  of 
the  western  islands,  little  search  was  neces- 
sary to  find  a  strong  position.  The  Anax, 

1  See  bibliography. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  7 

or  lord,  seized  upon  a  hill  of  moderate 
height,  generally  no  such  crag  as  the  Rhino 
castles  are  perched  upon,  but  a  single 
eminence  either  rising  like  an  island  out 
of  the  plain  or  swelling  up  from  the  roll- 
ing country  around  it  to  a  height  which 
varied  from  200  to  800  feet.  The  Aero- 
corinthus,  and  the  Acropolis  at  Athens 
are  conspicuous  instances.  Others  selected 
spurs  of  mountains  or  higher  hills  as  at 
Mycenae,  where  the  flanks  of  the  posi- 
tion are  further  strengthened  by  stream- 
traversed  ravines.  In  still  other  cases  we 
find  the  Homeric  stronghold  on  a  post  like 
that  of  Troy  itself,  an  outlying  spur  of  a 
range  of  hills,  connected  with  the  low 
ridges  to  the  immediate  north-east  of  it 
by  a  narrow  isthmus  of  land,  while  the 
Scamander  washes  the  foot  of  the  hill — 
such  a  position,  with  lower  hills  and  a 
smaller  stream,  as  that  of  the  Chateau 
Gail  lard  which  Richard  the  Lion  Hearted 
built  on  the  chalky  cliffs  frowning  upon 
the  Seine  above  Les  Andelys.  In  some 


^  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

instances,    as   in    the    fortress    of   Tiryns, 

figure  II,  the  chieftain  chose  a  rather  low 

o 

hill,  higher  at  one  end  than  at  the  other, 
and  protected  by  the  morass  which  sur- 
rounded it. 

The  site  of  Arne,  figure  IV,  on  an  island 
in  the  recently  drained  Lake  Copais,  would 
at  first  lead  us  to  consider  it  as  belonging 
to  the  class  of  Tiryns,  as,  in  fact,  in  one 
sense,  it  did.  It  seems  however  to  ha\ v 
been  a  city  with  a  palace  in  one  corner, 
and  to  have  been  or  to  have  grown  out 
of  a  fort  to  protect  the  huge  Mycenoean 
drainage  works  which  existed  in  the  marshy 
lake.1 

Let  us  assume  for  this  study  a  hill  of  the 
second  or  Mycenae  class,  about  250  feet 
high ;  a  hill  the  sides  of  which  are  smooth 
and  green  for  two-thirds  of  its  height. 
Above  this  point  the  verdure  gives  way 
to  the  grey  limestone  which  forms  the 


1  Tsountas  and  Manatt.  The  Mycen<tan  Age,  Appendix  B,  wliere 
a  plan  of  the  palace  Is  Riven,  Noack  in  Mittheilungen,  Vol.  19,  p  405 
et  seq. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  9 

brow  and  the  roughly  level  summit  of  the 
eminence,  a  summit  broken  by  rising  ground 
toward  its  northern  end.  Let  us  place  the 
long  axis  of  the  hill  north  and  south 
(figure  X),  assuming  a  steep  descent  on  the 
north  to  a  stream  which,  coming  from  the 
high  mountains  beyond,  tumbles  out  of  a 
ravine  on  the  west,  and  receives  the  brook 
on  the  eastern  side  of  our  stronghold.  The 
top  of  our  hill  slopes  downward  and  south- 
ward, narrowing  as  it  falls,  until  a  slight 
depression  marks  the  distinction  between 
it  and  the  yoke  which  binds  it  to  the  ridge 
of  which  it  is  the  northern  spur. 

The  walls,  courts  and  buildings  we  have 
to  place  upon  this  summit  we  may  divide 
into  three  classes:  I.  The  Palace  itself. 
II.  The  Dependencies  such  as  stables, 
storehouses  and  the  like,  and,  III.  the 
Approaches  and  Defences.  We  will  begin 
in  the  order  in  which  the  castle  would 
naturally  be  built,  that  is,  with  the  de- 
fences. 


10         THE  HOMERIC  PALACE. 
II. THE  DEFENCES. 

These  consisted  primarily,  in  all  cases, 
of  a  strong  outer  wall  around  the  whole 
extent  of  the  citadel,  with  the  more  or  less 
fortified  gates  and  approaches.  The  wall, 
the  herkion  (e/a/cto^),  of  the  poems,  followed 
very  closely  the  outline  of  the  eminence  on 
which  the  castle  was  built.  Within  the 
space  surrounded  by  it  there  was — in  the 
palace  of  Odysseus — a  second  line  of  en- 
closure, the  wall  of  the  inner  court,  of  the 
"court"  par  excellence.  This  was  the 
herkion  aules,  ('cpKiov  av\rj<i).  This  outer 
wall  might  or  might  not  coincide  with  the 
inner  line  at  certain  points,  but  between 
the  two  walls  at  the  outer  entrance,  and 
thus  near  the  entrance  to  the  inner  court 
also,  was  a  wide  space,  an  outer  court,1  like 
the  outer  bailey  of  a  Norman  castle. 

The  material  of  the  wall  is  not  clearly 
stated  in  Homer,  except  in  the  case  of 

1  Joseph,  Paldtte,  pp.  8-10. 


TR°IA 

Ravrtt.  III. 

The.My<asr\<»ean  Cite 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  11 

Eumaios'  abode,  which  was  surrounded  by 
a  low  wall  of  rough  stones  on  each  side  of 
which  was  a  row  of  palisades,  while  along 
the  top  ran  a  hedge  of  thorn1.  The  smaller 
castles  had  walls  very  likely  of  Cyclopean 
character,  while  those  humbler  dwellings 
of  the  people,  which  were  also  fortified, 
were  like  that  of  the  faithful  swineherd. 
Many  a  wall,  even  among  the  more  pre- 
tentious, was  no  doubt  built  of  palisades. 
When  we  turn  to  the  Mycenaean  remains, 
figures  I  to  IV,  we  find  some  variety  both 
in  the  materials  and  in  the  mode  of  con- 
struction. In  the  earliest  times  of  the 
Mycenaean  epoch  the  outer  wall  up  to  the 
level  of  the  hill-top  was  built  of  rough 
stones  against  the  face  of  the  cliff  like  a 
retaining  wall,  with  considerable  batter,  or 
inward  inclination,  of  its  outer  face. 

Above  this  level  the  ramparts  proper 
were  of  sun-dried  brick.  In  the  rampart  of 
the  second  stratum  of  the  fortress  at  Troy, 

1  Homer,  Odyssey,  XIV,  5-15. 


12  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

1  in  figure  V,  now  known  as  the  prehistoric 
or  Burnt  city,  which  Schliemann  at  first  took 
for  Homer's  Troy,  we  have  this  construc- 
tion. In  the  real  Troy,  however,  the  sixth 
stratum,  2  in  figure  V,  we  find  walls  which, 
while  they  still  batter  and  still  show  the 
same  retaining  wall  foundation,  are  much 
less  sloping  than  those  of  the  prehistoric 
strongholds.  They  are  built  too,  of  much 
better  stone,  and  in  a  much  better  manner, 
and  the  upper  rampart  is  here  of  stone  also. 
Indeed  the  masonry  in  the  Trojan  wall  is 
the  best  of  the  Mycenaean  epoch.  This  is 
due  in  a  large  measure  to  the  character 
of  the  stone,  the  easily  worked  poros,  which 
allowed  the  fine  faces  and  level  beds  of  the 
Trojan  wall ;  while  the  harder  limestone 
of  which  Tiryns  and  Mycenae  were  built 
gave  to  them  only  a  rough  regularity,  the 
result,  that  is,  of  an  attempt  to  build  with 
level  courses,  an  attempt  always  frustrated 
by  the  irregular  fracture  of  the  stones  the 
workmen  were  quarrying.  A  very  inter- 
esting peculiarity  of  these  walls,  as  we  find 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  13 

them  in  the  ruins  at  Troy,  Tiryns,  and 
especially  at  Arne,  is  the  zigzag  appearance, 
-almost,  of  the  plan.  It  is  as  if  the  walls, 
as  is  shown  in  4  and  7  of  figure  V,  were  built 
in  blocks  which  did  not  exactly  align,  but 
missed  doing  so  by  only  a  few  inches. 
This  fashion  of  wall  building  it  is  very 
difficult  to  explain.  Noack1  refers  to  some 
later  Greek  walls  at  Abai  and  Samikon,  5 
and  6  of  figure  V,  where  it  is  exaggerated 
into  a  flanking  system,  but  as  it  occurs  in 
-a  palace  wall  inside  the  ramparts  in  the 
Homeric  Troy,2  VI  F  in  7  of  figure  V,  he 
agrees  with  Dorpfeld3  in  thinking  it  an 
artistic  device,  a  means  of  breaking  up  the 
monotony  of  the  wall  surface ;  though  it 
may,  he  thinks,  have  originated  in  some 
older  way  of  flanking  the  curtain  wall.4 
At  Hagia  Marina,  near  Arne,  Herr  Xoack 
gives  a  plan  of  sections  of  the  wall  which 


1  N'oack,  mtthtUuiiytn,  Vol.  19,  p.  428-9. 
» Ibid.  430. 
3  Ibid.  430.  384. 
*  Ibid.  427. 

•Z 


14  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

are  convex  curves  on  the  outside  and  ;uv 
battered.  The  straight  walls  seem  to  have 
no  batter.1 

Though  the  great  wall  at  Arne,  which 
is  indeed  the  wall  of  a  city  and  not  of  a 
mere  citadel,  shows  this  system  so  strongly, 
we  find  that  the  real  herkion  of  the  palace 
recently  discovered  there,  the  wall  sur- 
rounding the  royal  dwelling,  and  what  Herr 
Nnuck  calls  the  Agora,  is  entirely  without 
it.  This  is  a  straight  wall,  enclosing  an 
almost  rectangular  space. 

The  masonry  of  the  great  fortress  walls 
of  the  crowning  period  of  the  style  was 
excellent.  There  are  two  great  classes  into 
which  the  work  may  be  divided.  The  first 
is  that  in  which  the  stones  are  laid  in  level 
courses,  with  good  faces,  as  at  Troy,  and 
in  some  parts  of  the  walls  of  Mycenae. 
The  second  is  the  Cyclopean  work,  so- 
called,  that  is,  work  in  which,  as  at  Tiryns, 
the  courses  are  as  nearly  level  as  the  rough, 

« Il.id,  446-8. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  15 

quarry-faced  blocks  of  the  material  used 
will  permit.  Polygonal  masonry  is  not 
Mycenaean.  It  is  always  a  sign  of  later 
Greek  work. 

Although  the  architects  of  that  old  time 
knew  the  use  of  lime,  and  even  of  concrete, 
these  mighty  walls  seem  always  to  have 
been  laid  in  mortar  consisting  of  clay 
alone,  or  of  clay  with  chopped  straw.1  The 
only  use  of  the  mortar  in  these  cases  was 
to  give  a  better  bed  for  the  somewhat 
rough  stone.  It  had  no  cohesive  duty,  and 
as  the  joints  in  the  masonry  grew  better  it 
was  gradually  abandoned,  until,  when  the 
technique  reached  the  perfection  we  see  in 
the  Parthenon,  no  mortar  was  thought  of. 

We  have  now  built  our  wall  of  exterior 
defense,  around  the  hill  on  which  our  pal- 
ace is  to  stand.  We  have  next  to  consider 
the  approaches. 


1  Sometimes  at  Troy  there  is  no  mortar.    DOrpfeld.  Mittheilungen, 
19,  p.  392. 


16         THE  HOMERIC  PALACE. 
III. THE  OUTER. GATE. 

This  generally  stood  at  the  most  easily 
accessible  point  of  the  whole  hill,  in  our 
case  at  the  southern  end,  figure  X,  at  the 
east  of  the  extreme  point.  Homer  gives 
us  little  information  as  to  the  outer  gate, 
which  can  be  read  independently  of  the 
ruins,  except  that  in  the  city  of  Priam  there 
was  a  tower  at  the  Scyean  gate,  and  that 
the  doors  at  the  gate  in  the  castle  of  Odys- 
seus were  double.  According  to  the  exca- 
vations, there  were,  apparently,  several 
ways  of  arranging  the  outer  gate  so  as  to 
protect  this  important  part  of  the  defences. 
Almost  all  of  these  are  given  in  figure  VI, 
and  a  little  attentive  study  of  these  draw- 
ings will  show  the  reader  that  there  is 
really  only  one  form  for  all  these  gate- 
ways. That  form,  stated  in  the  simplest 
manner,  is  a  rectangle,  at  the  outer  end  of 
which  is  a  wide  open  portal,  and  at  the  in- 
ner a  gate  closed  by  heavy  wooden  doors. 
The  space  between,  often  quite  large,  was 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  17 

generally,  if  not  always,  open  to  the  sky, 
and,  Lence,  since  it  was  unprotected  from 
the  stones,  arrows,  or  javelins  of  the  de- 
fenders on  the  side  walls  of  the  rectangle 
already  spoken  of,  it  formed  a  skillful  trap 
into  which  the  enemy  must  walk  in  order 
to  assail  the  wooden  door  of  the  inner  or 
actual  gate. 

At  the  prehistoric  citadel  of  Troy,  the 
trap  seems  to  be  a  double  one.  The  portal 
at  A,  1  and  2  in  figure  VI,  was  no  doubt 
open ;  those  at  B  and  C  very  likely  had 
wooden  doors.  The  masses  of  wall  outside 
were  probably  enlargements  of  the  side 
walls  of  the  "  trap."  At  Arne  we  find  them 
enlarged  into  huge  flanking  towers,  10,  11, 
12,  13,  14,  15  in  figure  VI.  The  same  is 
true  of  one  gate  at  Mycenaean  Troy,  5  in 
figure  VI.  At  Tiryns,  9  in  figure  VI,  the 
entrance  to  the  "  trap  "  is  at  right  angles  to 
the  length  of  the  passage. 

At  Troy,  Arne,  and  My  cense  is  seen  a 
very  skillful  disposition,  which  probably 
was  the  general  one  where  the  shape  of  the 


18  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

hill  allowed  its  adoption.  It  consists  in 
setting  back  one  surface  of  the  curtain 
wall,  and  building  the  gate  in  the  re-en- 
trant angle  thus  formed.  A  glance  at  the 
Lions'  gate,  the  great  gate  at  Arne,  and  the 
others,  6,  7,  and  10  in  figure  VI,  will  make 
this  clear. 

This  double  gate,  with  a  space  between, 
was  used  in  Etruria  in  some  instances,  and 
survived  into  the  Middle  Age.  There  the 
town  or  castle  gate  had  a  flanking  tower 
on  each  side  of  it  on  the  outside  of  the 
wall,  1  in  figure  VIII,  and  what  amounted 
to  a  pair  of  towers  on  the  inside  of  the 
wall.  The  "trap"  between  was  covered, 
but  the  upper  floor  had  holes  in  it  so  that 
lead,  hot  water,  darts,  and  other  pleasant- 
ries of  Mediaeval  warfare  could  be  con- 
veniently dropped  upon  the  besiegers. 
The  trap  also  occurs  at  Messeue,  in  Greek 
work,  and  at  Pompeii,  in  Roman,  t?  and  3 
in  figure  VIII. 

The  shape  of  the  great  shields  which 
the  Homeric  heroes  carried,  a  sort  of 


;.-.;*•. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  19 

leather  semi-cylinder  held  in  front,  reach- 
ing from  head  to  heel,  and  from  side  to 
side,  explains  the  lack  of  precaution  for 
making  the  enemy  turn  his  unshielded  side 
to  the  flanking  towers,  as  the  complete 
panoply  of  the  Middle  Age  explains  such 
a  lack  at  that  period.  A  restoration  of  the 
great  south  gate  at  Arne  is  given  in  figure 
IX. 

IV. THE    OUTER    COURT. 

One  of  the  simpler  or  one  of  the  more 
elaborate  of  the  entrances  in  figure  VI, 
whichever  it  is  that  allows  us  to  pass 
through  the  outer  wall  of  our  castle — and 
we  have  chosen  a  gate  of  perhaps  more 
than  average  size,  brings  us  out  upon  the 
lower  end  of  the  hill,  2  in  figure  X,  which 
the  wall  encloses.  We  would  naturally 
expect  the  dwellings  to  occupy  the  higher 
ground  toward  the  northern  end  of  the 
summit.  We  might  expect,  also,  another 
line  of  defense  between  the  lower  ground 
on  which  we  now  stand  and  the  vital 


20  THE   HOMERIC   PALACE. 

point  of  the  whole  fortification.  Accord- 
ingly we  will  level  oft*  the  higher 
ground  at  the  north  and  proceed,  by 
surrounding  it  with  a  wall,  to  separate  it 
from  what  now  becomes  the  outer  court, 
the  enclosure  which  Homer  sometimes 
calls  the  herkos1  (e/o/co?)  the  Basse-cour  of 
the  French  chateau,  the  Outer  Bailey  of 
the  English  castle.  Of  this  terracing 
Homer  gives  no  hint  unless  perhaps  a 
passage  in  the  Odyssey,"  "  buildings  are 
joined  to  buildings"  or  "follow  buildings," 
(literally,  out  of  other  things  there  are 
other  things),  may  point  toward  that  effect 
of  one  building  rising  behind  another  which 
terracing  would  produce.  But  the  exca- 
vations have  revealed  quite  elaborate 
terraces  of  this  kind.  At  Troy  there 
was  a  complete  second  enceinte,  A  in  2  of 
figure  VII,  enclosing  a  higher  court  where 
were  placed  the  dwellings  which  formed 
the  palace  proper.  At  Tiryns,  figure  II, 

'  Joseph,  pp.  8-12.    '  Horn.  Oil.  XVII,  26J-68. 


I  PorTe  cfeLdon^ 


I-  •         , '  t  — 

n .  ()p](ny.i]  Itfdxr}  ('H  Y&fi'C."*  rofi  PrtDooti). 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  21 

there  were  three  stages,  the  lower  court  on 
the  north,  occupied  no  doubt  by  the 
houses  of  the  lower  retainers,  the  middle 
citadel,  and  the  palace  itself,  on  the  upper 
citadel  or  highest  part  of  the  acropolis. 
At  Mycenae,  figures  I  and  VII,  the  palace 
stands  on  the  highest  point  of  the  citadel 
and  is  approached  by  a  ramp  from  the 
lower  part  of  the  hill-top  where  were,  as 
in  Tiryns,  the  houses  of  the  inferior 
members  of  the  royal  court. 

In  all  these  cases  we  see  that  there  is 
the  outer  courtyard,  the  space,  that  is  to 
say,  between  the  great  outside  wall  and 
the  inner  wall  which  surrounded  the 
smaller  court  lying  immediately  in  front 
of  the  great  hall  of  the  palace.  Homer 
does  not  describe  this  outer  court  very 
closely.  Indeed,  except  at  Tiryns  and 
perhaps  at  Arne,  where  what  Xoack  called 
the  agora  may  have  been  the  outer  bailey 
of  the  castle,  there  was  little  to  describe 
except  an  irregular  space  which  contained 
stables,  storehouses  and  other  buildings. 


22  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

But  the  poet  does  describe  certain  scenes 
and  actions  as  taking  place  in  the  outer 
court.  Here,  too,  he  places  the  dung- 
hill  whereon  the  ancient  Argus  breathed 
his  last,  and  here,  too,  was  the  tholos,  no 
doubt  the  latrine,  about  which  there  has 
arisen  a  goodly  controversy. 

A  study  of  the  plans  of  the  various  ac- 
tual palaces  of  the  time,  and  a  little  atten- 
tion to  figure  XI,  which  is  a  restoration  of 
the  palace  with  the  outer  court  and  its  ap- 
proaches at  Tiryns,  will  do  more  than 
many  words  to  make  clear  to  the  reader 
the  scheme  of  this  outer  court.  It  will  be 
very  instructive  also  to  compare  with  Tir- 
yns the  plan  of  the  Chateau  Gaillard  given 
in  figure  II,  where  the  corresponding  parts 
bear  the  same  lettering.  This  will  show 
how  international  the  court  scheme  was 
and  how  persistently  it  had  been  handed 
down.  At  any  rate  the  fortified  dwelling 
of  the  Middle  Age  seems  to  have  its  roots 
far  back  in  the  Aryan  past. 

Let  us  now,  on  the  top  of  our  imaginary 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  23 

or  typical  hill,  figure  X,  assume  such  a  fore- 
court, and  a  second  line  of  defence  around 
the  higher  part  of  the  hill  where  we  in- 
tend to  set  the  palace. 

V. THE    INNER    GATEWAY. 

The  Prothuron,  UpoOvpov,  the  Propylceum 
of  the  Second  Court. 

For  some  covered  gateway  leading  into 
the  aule  (avXif)  or  inner  court,  we  have  full 
Homeric  authority,  though,  unfortunately 
it  is  difficult  to  arrive,  from  the  mere  data 
of  the  poems,  at  an  absolute  restoration. 
The  prothuron  exists  because  the  charac- 
ters traverse  it  in  their  "exits  and  their 
entrances ; "  that  it  is  covered,  and  proba- 
bly has  columns  to  support  its  roof,  we 
judge  from  the  way  in  which  in  the  palace 
of  Menelaus,  the  word  e/atSovTro? — the  re- 
sounding or  echoing  is  combined  with  it.1 
We  infer  also  that  it  was  of  considerable 

1  Od.  XV.  146  quoted  by  Joseph,  p.  13. 


24  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

size,  for  the  servant  of  Menelaus,  when  lie 
had  led  the  horses  of  Telemachus  to  their 
stalls,  no  doubt  in  the  outer  court,  leaned 
the  chariot  against  the  shining  walls  un- 
der the  protection  of  its  portico.  Homer 
speaks  also  of  its  doors,  and  of  the  bar 
which  secured  them,  and  of  the  threshold 
of  the  court,  ovSo?  avXeto?,  whereon  they 
must  have  swung.1 

All  these  somewhat  vague  conditions 
are  met  and  the  whole  subject  made  clear 
by  the  discoveries  at  Troy  and  at  Tiryns— 
we  might  also  add  by  the  Propylaea  of  the 
Athenian  Acropolis.  For  the  form  of  the 
Greek  gateway  underwent  no  essential 
changes  from  the  time  of  prehistoric 
Troy,  the  time  which  we  may  call  the 
early  period  of  Mycenaean  architecture, 
to  that  of  historic  Athens ;  from  2500  B. 
C.,  that  is,  to  Mnesicles  B.  C.  430.  Two 
parallel  walls  intersect  the  main  wall  at 
right  angles,  one  at  each  side  of  the  door. 

1  Joseph,  pp.  12-15  ;  34-7. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  25 

They  project  beyond  the  outside  of  the  wall 
to  some  considerable  distance,  and  form  a 
porch  without  columns,  or  a  portico  in  an- 
tis  with  two  columns;  the  same  arrange- 
ment in  either  case  they  repeat  on  the  in- 
side. The  first  of  these  plans  is  found  in 
prehistoric  Troy,  1  and  2  in  figure  VI,  in 
the  outer  wall ;  the  second  in  the  entrance 
to  both  outer  and  inner  court  at  Tiryus, 
figure  XL  A  comparison  of  these  plans 
with  that  of  the  famous  entrance  to  the 
Athenian  Acropolis,  will  show  how  stead- 
fast the  essential  idea  of  the  Greek  monu- 
mental gateway  has  remained,  and  how  old 
it  is. 

This  comparison  also  brings  us  for  the 
first  time  face  to  face  with  a  question 
which  we  shall  meet  acjain — did  the  older 

O 

gateways  have  a  flat  roof,  or  did  they  have 
the  pitched  roof  of  the  great  Periclean  ex- 
ample ?  In  the  restorations  in  figures  X 
and  XI,  we  have  used  the  pitched  roof. 
Through  such  a  gateway,  then,  we  have 
to  pass  from  the  outer  court  to  the  grand 


26  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

court,  the  inner  bailey,  the  Cotir  d'  hoii- 
neur  of  the  castle.  We  have  several  feet 
to  ascend,  by  means  of  an  inclined  plane, 
in  gaining  the  higher  ground  of  this  second 
enclosure.  At  Mycenne  there  is  a  fine 
flight  of  steps  leading  from  a  little  vesti- 
bule, or  guardroom,  up  to  the  inner  court, 
and  the  drawings  show,  traces  of  a  propy- 
Iseum.1  At  Arne  all  traces  of  a  courtyard 
in  front  of  the  L  shaped  palace  seem  to 
have  disappeared.  No  doubt  some  of  the 
rooms  in  the  palace  are  really  inner  courts.2 

VI.  -  THE    INNER    COURT. 


Nothing  about  Homer's  description  of 
the  castle  of  the  hero  is  more  certain  than 
the  aule.  Odysseus,  looking  with  Eumaios 
at  his  ancestral  dwelling,  says:  "These 
indeed,  Eumaios,  are  the  beautiful  halls  of 


1  Tsountas  and  Manatt.  plate  IX. 
» Ibid,  p.  876. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  27 

Odysseus.  Easily  are  they  to  be  recog- 
nized and  known  among  many.  Building 
rises  beyond  building  (or  is  added  to  build- 
ing) with  wall  and  with  cornice,  and 
double  are  the  doors,  ^so  man  could  easily 
storm  it."1 

Probably  the  aule  was  a  part  of  every 
house  in  the  Homeric  time.  The  abode  of 
Eurnaios  possessed  one,  which  he  had  built 
"for the  swine  of  his  absent  lord,"  on  high 
ground,  lofty,  great,  and  apart  from  other 
buildings.2  He  seems  to  have  had  no  outer 
court.  That  there  sometimes  was  grass  in 
the  court  we  know  from  the  sacrifice  which 
Peleus  offered  standing  on  the  grass  of  his 
courtyard.3  That  there  was  also  an  arti- 
ficial floor  we  know  from  the  expression 
"  well-wrought,"  which  the  poet  applied  to 
the  pavement  of  the  courtyard  in  the  house 
of  Odysseus.  It  was  of  concrete,  a  mixture 
of  lime  and  pebbles,  which  must  have  con- 


•  Od.  XVII,  264  ff,  quoted  by  Joseph,  p.  5. 
»  Od.  XIV,  5-15. 
1 II.  XI,  TO-?. 


•_'^  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

tained  clay,  or  pounded  pottery,  otherwise 
it  could  never  have  stood  the  wash  of  the 
rain,  or  the  effect  of  freezing  snows.  At 
Tiryns  the  floor  was  of  this  concrete,  and 
was  pitched  to  drain  off  the  water,  which 
ran  to  a  catch-basin  covered  with  a  per- 
forated stone  on  the  south  side  of  the  court, 
and  reached  the  outside  of  the  rampart 
through  a  walled  drain.1  The  walls  of 
ancient  cities  of  Etruria  are  pierced  by 
many  just  such  drains.  The  draining  of 
the  outer  court  could  easily  be  managed  by 
pitching  the  water  directly  to  an  opening 
in  the  outer  curtain. 

The  outer  court  conformed  to  the  shape 
of  the  hill-top,  which,  of  course,  gave  the 
direction  of  the  ramparts  on  its  brow. 
The  inner  court,  no  doubt,  did  so  in  many 
cases,  but  from  its  very  position  it  was  apt  to 
be  further  withdrawn  from  the  main  walls, 
and  thus  freer  to  follow  the  more  con- 
venient rectangular  disposition.  This  is 

• 

1  Dttrpfeld  in  Tiryns,  p.  203. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  29 

only  partly  the  case  at  Tiryns.  As  a  rule, 
around  three  sides  of  the  court — part  of 
the  fourth  side,  that  toward  the  entrance, 
Avas  taken  up  by  the  inner  porch  of  the 
Propylaeum  —  were  open  porticoes,  the 
aithousai,  (aWovcrai)  of  the  poems.  On  the 
side  opposite  the  entrance  the  guest  who 
entered  the  court  beheld  the  porch  or  vesti- 
bule of  the  Megaron,  the  great  hall,  the 
principal  building  of  the  palace. 

At  one  side  of  the  entrance,  so  that  it 
did  not  interfere  with  the  passage  to  and 
fro  between  the  gate  and  the  hall,  stood 
the  altar  of  Zeus  Herkeios  (BW/AOS  Ato? 
e/3/ceiov1),  Zeus  of  the  Court,  which  we  know 
existed  in  the  court  of  Odysseus.  At 
Tiryns  this  took  the  form  of  a  sacrificial 
pit.  Under  the  aithousai  opened  the  doors 
and  windows  which  gave  light  and  access 
to  the  chambers  of  the  higher  i-etainers  or 
of  the  sons  of  the  family.  It  was  probably 
here  that  Telernachus  found  his  chamber, 
and  its  situation  in  this  place,  on  the  same 

1  Joseph,  p.  23. 


30  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

level  as  the  Meguron,  would  justify  the 
poet's  statement  that  it  was  in  a  "  lofty 
place." 

The  porticoes,  too,  which  were  in  them- 
selves a  decoration  as  well  as  a  shelter, 
were  carried  on  carved  and  painted 
columns  of  wood.  That  this  was  the  case 
at  Tiryns  was  proved  by  the  stone  bases 
of  those  columns,  which  were  found  in 
place,  though  the  columns  had  disappeared. 
This  use  of  stone  bases,  while  a  very  old 
contrivance,  for  it  occurs  at  Kahun  1500 
before  Christ,  is  also  a  very  modern 
one,  as  all  architects  know,  and  occurs, 
furthermore,  in  the  ruins  of  at  least  one 
Roman  villa  in  England.  The  entab- 
latures which  spanned  the  spaces  be- 
tween these  columns  were  also  of  wood 
painted  or  sheathed  in  alabaster  picked 
out  with  blue.  The  principal  decoration, 
of  course,  was  lavished  upon  the  vestibule 
of  the  Megaron.  Next  in  splendor  would 
come  the  vestibule  of  the  Propylaeum,  or 
prothuron,  and  then  the  aithousai. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  31 

Fancy  yourself,  then,  on  the  charmed 
pavement  of  the  court  of  much  enduring 
Odysseus.  Above  you  is  the  blue  Greek 
sky,  cut  off  in  front  by  the  mass  of  the 
Megaron,  with  its  red  tiles,  or  reddish 
clay  roof,  its  sparkling  frieze,  its  painted 
columns  and  its  walls  of  stone  or  of  col- 
ored stucco.  On  either  side  the  same 
red  tile  roof  cuts  a  sharp  line  across  the 
blue ;  and  frieze,  and  column,  and  painted 
wall,  the  latter  in  a  lovely  purple  shadow, 
succeed  each  other  as  the  eye  comes  down 
again  to  seek  the  more  sober  coloring  of 
the  floor.  In  such  a  court  as  this  was  the 
daytime  gathering-place  of  the  retainers ; 
here  the  sports  went  forward,  here,  as  in 
the  Mediaeval  castle,  the  young  men  were 
taught  the  use  of  their  weapons.  Here 
we  find  the  shameless  wooers  assembling 
to  watch  the  rough  play  and  the  wrestling 
and  to  feast  on  the  substance  of  the 
absent  lord  of  Ithaca. 


32  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

VII. THE    MEGARON. 

I 

Meyapoi/. 

Megaron  andron,  Domos,  Doma,  The 
Grand  Hall. 

Meyapoi/  avSpuv,  OiKog,  Ao/^,o5,  Aai/xa, 
Aw/xara. 

What  the  hall  was  to  the  castle  or  to 
the  manor  of  the  Middle  Age,  the  Megaron 
was  to  the  Mycenaean  palace.  In  fact  it 
was  the  "great  room,"  the  principal  apart- 
ment of  any  dwelling,  of  the  tent  of 
Achilles,  of  the  abode  of  the  swineherd 
Eumaios.  It  was  descended  from  a  very 
ancient  type  which  we  see  in  prehistoric 
Troy,  and  which  we  meet  again  in  a 
modified  form  in  the  Atrium  of  the 
Etrusco-Roman  house.  One  analogy  in 
the  square  keep  type  of  the  Norman  castle 
fails  us,  though  it  is  carried  out  more  nearly 
in  the  shell  keep  type  and  in  the  French 
examples.  In  no  instance  that  we  know,  un- 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  33 

less,  perhaps,  at  Arne,  is  the  Megaron  forti- 
fied. The  hall  of  the  square  keep  strong- 
hold of  the  Normans  was  in  the  Donjon  or 
Keep  itself,  the  last  refuge  of  the  garrison, 
isolated  from  the  other  defences  and  build- 
ings, defending  them,  as  well  as  defended 
by  them.  The  French  castles  have  a  hall 
beside  the  keep.  Here  we  have  a  palace 
in  a  fortified  enclosure  as  in  the  shell  keep 
type  of  Norman  castle,  where  the  hall 
and  its  dependencies  are  surrounded  by 
an  inner  wall.  Only  at  Arne  do  we  find 
anything  like  defensive  precautions  after 
we  pass  the  entrance  of  the  palace.  The 
outer  barriers,  with  the  position  of  the 
whole,  were  held  to  be  enough.  In  mak- 
ing the  walls  so  ponderous  as  to  excite 
our  wonder,  so  strong  as  to  defy  any  effort 
of  besiegers  or  any  artillery  of  that  time, 
they  satisfied  themselves.  In  these  mighty 
walls  they  confided,  and  the  long  sieges 
whereof  the  traditions  have  come  down, 
and  the  stratagems  necessary  to  take  holds 
which  could  not  be  reduced,  show  that  the 
confidence  was  not  misplaced. 


34  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

The  Megaron,  as  we  have  already  said, 
faced  the  inner  court  on  the  side  opposite 
the  entrance.  At  Tiryns  it  looks  toward 
the  south,  as  it  no  doubt  did  in  all  cases 
where  it  was  possible,  and  it  is  not  probable 
that  a  site  where  it  had  to  face  the  north 
would  be  selected.  A  similar  arrangement 
lingered  into  classic  times,  for  Vitruvius 
says  that  there  were  no  porticoes  on  the 
north  of  a  Greek  courtyard. 

In  plan  the  Megaron  was  a  long  rectangle 
which  Homer  divides  into  three  parts,  the 
aithousa  domatos  (aWovcra  Scares),  the 
prodomos  (-TrpoSo/aos,  irpodvpov  Sw/xaros), 
and  the  megaron  proper.  In  this  division 
the  ruins  in  general  agree  almost  exactly, 
the  remains  at  Troy — both  prehistoric  and 
Mycenaean  —  alone  dissenting.  In  these 
megara  there  is  but  one  vestibule.  The 
Women's  Megaron  at  Tiryns  is  smaller  than 
the  men's,  and,  as  having  a  courtyard  of  its 
own,  has  in  like  manner  a  single  portico. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  35 

The  Aitlioma. — AWovcra. 

The  outermost  of  these  rooms,  which 
exists  in  all  the  examples,  was  open  to  the 
court,  and  consisted  merely  of  a  portico 
in  antis  with  two  columns.  This  arrange- 
ment, the  prototype  of  the  temple  porch, 
gave  the  architect  then,  as  in  later  times, 
ample  opportunity  for  decoration.  Its  con- 
struction was  quite  simple  and  determined 
the  ornament.  The  ends  of  the  two  side 
walls  which,  by  their  projection,  formed 
the  sides  of  the  vestibule,  were  sometimes, 
like  the  whole  wall  of  the  Megarou,  of 
mud  brick.  In  that  case  they  were  covered 
and  protected  from  being  knocked  to  pieces 
by  upright  strips  of  wood  which  rested  on 
stone  sockets,  and  which,  in  the  ruins,  have 
left  the  imprint  of  their  size  and  shape  in 
the  material  of  the  wall.  At  Troy,  which 
probably  represented  the  earlier  part  of 
the  great  period  in  the  architecture  of  the* 
Mycenaean  civilization,  the  walls  are  of 
finely  worked  stone,  and  thus  needed  no 


:'.i;  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

wooden  protection,  nor  do  they  have,  as  in 
the  later  temples,  the  antae  of  stone,  recall- 
ing the  primitive  wooden  strips,  which 
acted  something  like  our  wooden  corner- 
beads  in  plaster  work. 

As  the  span  between  the  antae  was  con- 
siderable for  single  beams,  the  two  columns 
were  set  between  them  to  support  the 
wooden  architrave,  for  wooden  it  must 
have  been,  as  no  stone  beams  could  easily 
have  spanned  the  intervals.  This  is  made 
more  certain  by  the  fact  that  the  columns 
appear  in  most  cases  to  have  been  of  wood, 
with  stone  bases  to  keep  the  feet  of  them 
from  rotting  by  contact  with  the  damp 
ground.  I  say  in  most  cases,  for  in  Troy 
there  were  found  in  the  space  between  the 
antae  neither  columns  nor  stone  bases,  and 
that  in  a  very  wide  space.  Here  the 
columns  may  have  been  of  stone,  as  the 
rest  of  the  building  was,  for  while  no  one 
would  care  for  a  stone  base,  a  column 
could  be  used  again  in  another  place,  and 
hence — to  judge  from  experience  in  later 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  37 

times — the  column  would  vanish,  while  a 
simple  base  might  remain.  These  column 
bases  stand  on  a  step,  upon  the  top  step 
where  there  are  two,  which  raises  the  floor 
of  the  Megaron  above  that  of  the  court. 
Upon  them  stood  the  columns  of  wood,  the 
shape  whereof  we  can  only  conjecture. 
The  analogy  of  the  Lions'  Gate  and  of  the 
Tholos  of  Atreus  at  Mycenae,  would  make 
us  restore  the  shafts  as  tapering  downward 
and  crowned  with  flat,  proto-doric  capitals.1 
These  columns,  however,  which  show  strong 
Hittite  influence,  are  not  of  necessity  the 
only  ones  which  prevailed  in  all  Mycenaean 
architecture.  It  needs  no  stretch  of  im- 
agination to  restore,  at  least  in  the  humbler 
dwellings,  the  simple  cylinder,  the  square, 
or  even  the  tapered  column  as  we  are 
accustomed  to  think  of  it.  It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  in  sober  construction — for  the 
columns  in  the  Lions'  Gate  and  the  Tomb 
of  Atreus  are  mere  decorations — the  early 

1  For  a  column  with  reversed  taper  in  Egypt  see  Lepsius,  Denk- 
maler,  I,  pi.  31. 
4 


38  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

Greeks  would  have  used  a  form  which, 
except  in  votive  stehu,  a  use  akin  to  that 
in  the  tomb,  was  so  foreign  to  the  archi- 
tecture the  later  loiiians  developed.  The 
free  column,  when  it  appears,  will  very 
likely  astound  the  antiquaries  by  repro- 
ducing either  the  form  seen  at  Beni-Hassan, 
Deir  el  Bahari,  and  old  Karnac,  or  of  some 
lotus  cap,  a  proto-Ionic  shaft  and  capital 
with  the  upward  diminution. 

The  floor  of  the  aithousa  domatos  was 
of  different  materials,  according  to  the 
wealth  of  the  lord  of  the  palace  and  the 
position  of  his  home.  The  floor  of  the 
whole  Megaron  of  Odysseus  was  of  beaten 
clay,  and  so  was,  no  doubt,  that  of  the 
porch. 

At  Tiryns  the  floor  is  of  a  concrete  of 
lime  and  pebbles — the  lime  perhaps  con- 
tained some  clay.  At  Mycenae  it  is  paved 
with  stone.  This  floor  at  Tiryns  was 
marked  oft'  into  squares  of  red,  separated 
by  narrow  strips  of  blue,  which  in  their 
turn  are  set  off  from  the  red  by  incised 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  39 

lines.  The  dourudoke  (80^/3080x17),  the 
"  spear-rest "  was  in  the  aithousa  of  the 
Megaron. 

The  Prodomos.     n/DoSo/xos. 

Between  the  aithousa  and  the  Megarou 
proper  there  probably  was,  in  the  smaller 
palaces,  only  a  door  of  two  leaves  with  its 
polished  threshold,  the  xestoslithos  (jfeo-ro? 
Xi'^o?),  which  Homer  seems  never  to  weary 
of  praising.  This  arrangement  is  to  be 
seen  at  Troy.  In  the  palace  of  Amyntor,1 
however,  Homer  speaks  also  of  a  prodo- 
mos,  or  vestibule,  as  distinct  from  the 
portico,  and  this  plan  we  find  sustained, 
as  we  have  already  said,  by  the  excava- 
tions at  Mycenae  and  Tiryus.  The  oldest 
houses  at  Troy  are  of  the  simple  type.  In 
describing  the  Megaron  of  Odysseus  the 
poet  mentions  only  a  prodomos,  and  seems 
to  use  the  word  as  interchangeable  with 
aithousa,  and  thus  as  meaning  the  portico. 

1 II.  IX,  472. 


40  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

At  Tiryns  three  double  doors  with 
wooden  stathmoi  (crra^/xoi)  or  jambs,  give 
access  to  the  prodomos  from  the  aithousa. 
From  the  prodomos  to  the  Megarou  proper, 
opens  a  single  large  door  like  that  which, 
in  the  humbler  castles,  formed  the  passage 
between  aithousa  and  Megaron.  Here  it 
is  closed  by  a  curtain.  The  floor  in  both 
men's  and  women's  Megaron  at  Tiryns  was 
of  concrete ;  at  Mycenae  it  was  of  concrete 
with  a  border  of  wide  stones.  Perhaps, 
in  the  smaller  castles,  it  was  simply  of 
beaten  clay,  like  that  of  the  Megaron  of 
Odysseus. 

The    Great    Hall    or    Megaron    Proper. 
Meyapov. 

We  are  now  within  the  Megaron  proper, 
the  great  hall  of  the  palace,  the  principal 
apartment  of  the  whole  group.  It  is  a 
good  sized  room,  longer  than  it  is  wide, 
and  probably  quite  high.  Its  floor,  at 
least  in  the  palace  of  Odysseus,  is  of 


THE   HOMERIC   PALACE.  41 

beaten  clay.  Its  walls,  like  those  of  the 
whole  palace  inside  the  fortifications,  were 
sometimes  of  stone,  as  at  Mycenaean  Troy 
and  at  Arne,  sometimes,  as  in  prehistoric 
Troy  and  in  parts  of  the  walls  at  Tiryns, 
of  a  sort  of  half-timber  work,  a  com- 
bination of  mud-brick  and  wooden  beams, 
in  which  the  beams  run,  not  vertically,  as  in 
Mediaeval  work,  but  horizontally.  The 
whole  wall  then  had  a  footing  of  stone, 
which,  at  Tiryns,  was  carried  to  a  con- 
siderable height.  Inside  and  out,  these 
walls  were  stuccoed  and  painted,  a  practice 
in  which  we  have  the  origin  of  the 
polychromy  of  later  Greek  architecture. 

On  the  inside  the  walls  were  sometimes 
lined,  wholly  or  in  part,  with  plates  or 
rosettes  of  bronze,  and  adorned  with  friezes 
of  alabaster  decorated  with  blue.  Such 
was  the  decoration  in  the  palace  of 
Alcinous.  This  splendor  was  probably 
less  common  than  the  stucco  painted  in 
bands  which  we  find  in  the  ruins,  and 
which  was  probably  carried  into  all  the 


42  THE   HOMERIC   PALACE. 

important  rooms  of  the  palace.  Hangings, 
both  to  close  openings  and  to  adorn  walls, 
were  no  doubt  in  common  use.  It  is 
curious  that  we  find  here  a  feeling  in 
regard  to  the  house  so  different  from  that 
of  the  later  Greeks.  Until  long  after  the 
Persian  wars,  the  house,  in  Greece  proper, 
was  little  adorned.  The  Athenian  citizen 
spent  his  time  in  trade,  in  the  Agora  or 
upon  the  hill  of  Mars.  To  him  the  house 
was  only  a  place  for  eating  and  sleeping. 
Until  after  the  Periclean  age,  indeed, 
probably,  up  to  the  time  of  Alexander, 
he  saw  adornment  lavished  only  upon 
public  buildings.  The  Achaian  prince 
saw  cause  to  live  in  his  house.  He  left  it 
often,  indeed,  for  hunting  and  for  war,  but, 
unless  armed  and  surrounded  by  his  re- 
tainers, he  could  tarry  nowhere  else.  He 
was  fond  of  his  dwelling,  and  he  made  it 
express  his  power,  wealth  and  taste  so 
successfully  that  we  look  upon  the  remains 
of  it  with  wonder.  While  we  find  Pericles, 
then,  living  in  a  modest  house  and  direct- 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  43 

ing  a  state  expenditure  of  millions  upon 
the  Propylsea,  and  upon  the  temple  of 
Athene,  Agamemnon  spends  untold  treas- 
ure upon  the  adornment  of  his  palace  and 
of  his  tomb,  and  we  can  not  find  a  temple 
in  his  dominions. 

In  the  center  of  the  great  room  stood 
the  eschare  (ta-yaprf)  or  hearth.  Arete, 
queen  of  Alcinous,  sat  between  it  and  the 
column.1  It  may  have  been  of  clay,  like 
the  floor  above  which  it  was  raised  a  step 
or  even  two  steps,  as  at  Mycenae.  Here,  it 
is  circular,  eleven  feet  in  diameter,  of  clay 
covered  with  five  coats  of  stucco,  each 
painted  as  if  each  had  been  put  on  as  the 
one  below  it  wore  out.  In  the  women's 
Megaron  at  Tiryns  the  hearth  is  square. 

The  heating  of  the  room,  then,  is  plain. 
The  lighting  of  it,  however,  is  only  to  be 
conjectured,  though  it  is  generally  con- 
ceded that  the  daylight  found  entrance 
through  the  roof,  or  just  under  the  roof. 

~» 

1  Od.  VI,  305-7. 


44  THE   HOMERIC   PALACE. 

Homer,  as  we  have  said,  speaks  of  columns 
in  the  Megaron  of  Alcinous,1  and  four  ex- 
ist— or  rather  the  bases  which  carried 
them  exist — in  the  Megaron  at  Tiryns  and 
at  Mycenae.  In  the  halls  of  oldest  date,  at 
Troy,  none  were  found,  not  even  the  bases, 
though  the  span  was  greater  than  at  either 
of  the  other  buildings.  The  absence  of 
them  is  difficult  to  account  for  except  on 
the  supposition  that  the  bases  of  stone 
have  been  stolen,  or  that  the  columns  were 
of  stone,  and  that  columns  and  bases  alike 
were  long  ago  pressed  into  the  service  of 
some  later  temple,  or  even  of  a  peasant's 
hut.  Of  course,  in  all  the  smaller  halls, 
there  was  no  need  of  columns,  as  the 
heavy  mesodmai  (/u,ecroS/xcu),  or  girders, 
would  span  the  whole  width  of  the  room. 
In  either  case,  whether  the  beams  did  so 
span  the  room  alone  or  were  aided  by  col- 
umns, there  was,  almost  certainly,  in  the 
roof,  an  opening  which  differed  from  the 


Ibid. 


THE   HOMERIC   PALACE.  45 

Mediaeval  "  louvre"  only  in  detail.  It  rose 
above  the  main  roof,  carried  either  upon 
the  four  posts  and  occupying  the  whole 
span  between  them,  or  upon  girders  where 
there  were  no  posts,  and  taking  up  a  cor- 
responding amount  of  room  in  the  roof. 
Its  office  was  to  let  the  smoke  from  the 
hearth  out,  as  well  as  to  let  the  light  in, 
and  it  must,  therefore,  have  been  so  large 
that  the  former  function  should  not  too 
much  obscure  the  latter.  To  keep  out  a 
driving  storm  it  probably  had,  if  not 
louvre-boards,  at  least  a  shelter  of  some  sort, 
which  could  be  closed  on  the  windward 
side.  It  is  almost  certain,  also,  that  the 
walls  of  the  Megaron  rose  above  the  sur- 
rounding roofs,  and  had  windows  near  the 
cornices.1 

The  beams  of  which   we   have  spoken 


1  Joseph,  plate  I.  allows  for  this  rising  of  the  walls,  but  gives  no 
windows.  According  to  his  view  the  light  came  in  through  the 
spaces  between  the  roof  beams  over  the  girders  on  the  columns, 
and  in  the  same  way  over  the  tops  of  the  side  walls.  See  Prof. 
Middleton's  restoration  of  the  Megaron  of  Tiryns,  Journal  of  Hel- 
lenic Studies,  Vol.  VII. 


46  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

carried  the  roof.  Homer  calls  them  mesod- 
mai.  What  kind  of  a  roof  they  sustained 
is  still  a  matter  of  conjecture  among  the 
authorities.  Schliemann,  Joseph,  Dorpfeld, 
Perrot,  claim  that  on  the  mesodmai  lay 
smaller  beams,  dokoi  (80*01'),  which  carried, 
on  boards  or  reeds,  a  heavy  flat  roof  of  clay, 
such  as  they  point  to  in  the  Troad,  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  in  the  Cyclades  to-day. 
Tsouritas  and  Manatt  agree  to  this  in  the 
case  of  the  palace,  but  contend  for  the  ga- 
ble roof  in  the  private  house.  The  argu- 
ment from  the  fragments  of  clay  with 
marks  of  twigs  in  it  may  possibly  be  un- 
answerable, but  even  then  the  clay  may 
have  been  laid  at  an  angle  as  well  as  on  a 
level.  The  absence  of  tiles  proves  noth- 
ing. They  were  useful,  and  would  be 
taken  from  those  old  buildings  exactly  as 
they  were  taken  from  later  ones.  Present 
practice,  indeed,  is  generally  a  safe  guide 
to  the  customs  of  antiquity  in  the  East, 
but  it  is  not  always  so,  and,  while  the  ex- 
istence of  the  clay  roof  can  be  proved 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  47 

from  the  debris  which  filled  the  ruins  at 
Tiryns,  yet,  in  the  face  of  the  late  Greek 
love  of  the  gable,  and  the  Lykian  and  old 
Italian  analogies,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  give 
up  the  more  picturesque  sloping  roof. 
Beaten  clay  would  stand  a  slight  slope  in 
itself — in  fact  would  need  one  to  throw  off 
the  water — and  if  it  were  covered  with 
concrete  it  would  endure  considerably 
more.  The  men  who  concreted  the  great 
aule  at  Tiryns  and  expected  the  concrete 
to  stand  rain,  for  they  pitched  it  toward 
one  corner  and  provided  a  drain  for  it, 
could  have  protected  their  roofs. 

The   floor   of   the   hall    at   Tiryns  was 
covered  with  concrete  instead  of  the  beaten 
clay  with  which  Odysseus  was  content — 
unless    perhaps    by    the    words   he    used 
Homer  meant  a  floor  of  this  same  kind— 
and  upon  the  concrete  a  crossed  line  pattern, 
incised    and   painted,    appears  again.     At 
Mycenae  the  concrete  occupies  the  center 
of  the  room,  and  a  strip  of  flagging  three 
feet  wide  runs  around  next  to  the  walls. 


4:8  THE   HOMERIC   PALACE. 

Homer  called  the  Megaron  *'  shadowy." 
No  doubt  it  was.  The  constant  smoke  of 
the  fire  as  it  rose  through  the  roof  would 
darken  the  woodwork,  as  it  has  done  in  old 
English  halls,  and  in  some  of  our  own 
colonial  rooms,  and  would  have  an  effect 
even  on  the  side  walls.  But  the  hall  was 
not  dark.  It  would  very  likely  seem 
gloomy  to  us,  who  are  accustomed  to  an 
almost  out-door  light  in  our  houses,  but 
the  old  Achaian  did  not  find  it  so.  He  did 
riot  read  there,  and  he  cared  little  to  sit 
there  and  look  out  of  the  windows  on  a 
rainy  day.  When  not  compelled  to  be 
abroad  in  the  storm  he  was  satisfied,  if  the 
season  were  summer,  with  the  shelter  of 
the  aithousai  around  the  court.  In  winter 
the  feast  in  the  Megaron  and  the  rough 
horse-play  —  probably  not  very  different 
from  that  of  our  Saxon  ancestors,  except  in 
refinement,  and  we  should  hardly  call  the 
suitors  refined — filled  out  the  day.  Very 
likely  some  farm  work  took  up  the  atten- 
tion of  the  small  lords,  for  Homeric  times 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  49 

were  singularly  democratic  in  those  matters. 
Weaving  and  even  sewing  could  have  been 
done  in  the  hall,  for  eyes  used  to  a  dim 
light  such  as  the  Mediaeval  silk-  weavers  had 
at  Lyons,  will  do  work  which  is  a  marvel 
to  us,  who  think  our  rooms  must  be  flooded 
with  day,  and  who  can  not  read  or  draw 
in  a  half  light. 

vin.  —  THE  WOMEN'S  APARTMENTS. 


Weaving,  sewing,  and  embroidery,  how- 
ever, did  not  need  to  be  done  in  the  Megaron, 
for  there  was  in  the  typical  Homeric  palace 
a  regular  suite  of  apartments  or  a  single 
room  set  aside  for  the  lady  of  the  castle 
and  her  maids.  In  the  small  strongholds 
this  was  probably  a  room  at  the  back  of 
the  Megaron,  from  which  it  was  accessible 
by  a  door  in  the  axis  of  the  hall  and 
opposite  to  the  main  entrance.  In  the 
more  lordly  castles  the  women  had  more 
important  abodes,  and  in  Tiryns  we  find 


50  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

them  endowed  with  an  Anle  and  a  Megaron 
of  their  own,  corresponding  closely  to  those 
of  the  men.  The  aithousai  or  porticoes 
are  on  two  sides  only  of  the  aule,  and  one  of 
these  is  partly  taken  up  by  the  aithousa  of 
the  women's  Megaron,  which  lies  before  the 
large  room  of  the  hall,  and  which,  because 
of  its  short  span,  has  no  columns  between 
the  antse  at  its  sides. 

At  Tiryns  the  women's  Megaron  repeats 
the  internal  arrangement  of  the  men's  hall. 
It  has  its  portico  or  aithousa,  its  hearth,  its 
cement  floor,  and  no  doubt  its  louvre  in  the 
roof  whence  the  smoke  of  the  fire  found 
escape  into  the  air. 

The  cooking  for  the  men  seems,  from  the 
poems,  to  have  been  done  in  their  hall. 
No  doubt  the  women's  Megaron  in  the 
same  way  served  as  their  kitchen  as  well 
as  their  parlor  and  living-room. 

The  castle  of  Odysseus — though  in  its 
Megaron  three  hundred  suitors  could  feast 
and  riot — seems  to  have  been  one  of  the 
humbler  class,  as  regards  the  arrangement 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  51 

4 

of  the  Gunaikouitis  or  women's  rooms. 
The  women's  apartments  were  behind  the 
men's  Megaron ;  and,  though  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  Odyssey  which  denies  the 
existence  of  a  special  court  for  the  women 
in  the  rear,  like  the  Peristyle  in  the  classic 
Roman  house,  it  seems  fair  to  assume  that 
there  was  only  one  room  at  the  end  of 
the  men's  hall,  from  which  a  stair  led  to 
Penelope's  chamber,  in  the  second  story. 
The  thalamos  (tfaXa/xos )  or  chamber  of 
Odysseus,  was  probably  beyond  this  room, 
and  may  have  opened  out  of  it,  as  the 
tablinum  out  of  the  Roman  atrium.  For 
the  women's  apartments  at  Tiryns  and 
Mycenae  are  but  the  enlargement  of  the 
thalamos,  which  formed  one  of  the  three 
parts — court,  vestibule,  and  inner  room, 
(thalamos)1  of  which  the  house  of  Paris 
consisted  on  the  acropolis  of  Troy.  This 
thalamos  and  the  Roman  tablinum,  the 
chamber  at  the  end  of  the  Roman  covered 

»I1.  VI.  316,  ot   ol   iTtinrjffav   ftdla/jiov  xa\  8a>;j.a  xa\  auArtv. 


52  THE    HOMERIC   PALACE. 

atrium,  were  no  doubt  kindred  descend- 
ants of  a  primitive  Aryan  form,  which  had 
another  representative  in  the  chamber 
opening  out  of  the  north  European  hall. 

IX. THE    BATH-ROOM. 

Eurycleia's  discovery  of  the  identity  of 
the  old  beggar  whom  Telemachus  has  re- 
ceived would  hardly  have  emboldened  the 
critics  to  claim  the  existence  of  a  separate 
bath-room  in  the  palace  of  Ithaca.  There 
no  doubt  was  one,  as  everyone  is  willing  to 
admit,  since  Schliemann  and  Dorpfeld  have 
unearthed  that  in  the  Tirynthian  castle. 

The  bath-room  at  Tiryns  is  west  of  the 
men's  Megaron,  from  the  prodomos  or  ves- 
tibule of  which  it  is  approached,  while  it 
is  also  accessible  from  the  western  aithousa 
of  the  court.  It  is  a  small,  almost  square 
room,  about  8'-8"  by  10'- 1",  its  floor  formed 
of  a  single  slab  of  limestone  through  which 
a  hole  was  drilled  for  the  escape  of  the 
wrater  when  the  terra  cotta  bath  tub — 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  53 

fragments  of  which  were  found — was 
emptied  upon  it.  This  hole  carried  the 
water  into  a  terra  cotta  drain.  This  free 
use  of  terra  cotta  shows  that  though  no 
roof  tiles  were  found  at  Tiryns,  the  men 
of  that  time  could  have  made  them,  and, 
indeed,  may  have  had  such  roofing  mate- 
rial, which,  in  a  later  age,  less  skilled  in 
tile-making,  may  have  become  the  booty 
of  ambitious  house  builders.  The  drain 
ran  under  the  palace,  and  no  doubt  carried 
away  the  water  from  the  two  large  court- 
yards, and  emptied  its  contents  upon  the 
scarped  rock  of  the  citadel  outside  the 
mighty  rampart  wall.  Such  drain  open- 
ings are,  as  we  have  already  noted,  com- 
mon in  all  the  city  walls  of  Etruria 

X. THE    SECOIsTD    STOKY. 

Huperoon.     'Trreptoov. 

That  this  was  not  uncommon  in  Homer's 
time  may  be  gathered  directly  from  the 
poems.  Penelope's  chamber  on  the  second 


.->4  Till:    IIOMKKIC    I'AI.ACK. 

floor,  where  she  wove  and  ravelled  the  web 
of  her  destiny,  was  perhaps  only  an  instance 
of  what  was  the  rule.  We  have  been  too 
prone  to  imagine  that  the  houses  of  an- 
tiquity were  of  one  story.  The  many- 
storied  tenements  of  Rome,  the  three-storied 
dwellings  of  Egypt,  and  the  stall's  which 
exist  at  Tiryns — probably  two  separate 
flights1 — and  at  MycenH1  should  dispel  all 
such  lingering  popular  errors.  At  the 
same  time  Homer's  silence  as  to  any  m<nn 
beside  this  chamber  on  the  second  floor 
gives  us  a  great  deal  of  latitude.  It  may 
be  that  the  roofs,  as  Dorpfeld  claims,  were 
flat,  and  that  these  upper  rooms  were 
like  smaller  houses  set  upon  them.  It  is 
possible,  indeed  probable,  that,  since  the 
Megaron  was  very  high,  as  became  its 
great  length  and  width,  the  two  stories  of 
the  rest  of  the  palace  brought  the  other 
roofs  level  with  its  roof.  Again,  the 
analogy  of  a  funerary  urn  in  Etruria,  which 

DOrpfeld,  in  Schliemann's  Tiryni>.  p.  248-9. 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  55 

indicates  a  balcony  on  the  second  floor, 
and  that  of  the  drawings  in  Egypt,  which 
show  something  very  much  the  same,  may 
give  us  a  clue  to  some  similar  arrangement 
in  the  palace  of  the  well  greaved  Achaians. 
Later  excavations  will  perhaps  do  some- 
thing to  settle  the  question  of  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  Homeric  palace.  Till  then  all 
will  be  more  or  less  reasonable  conjectural 
restoration. 

XI.  -  THE    PASSAGE    AND    THE    POST  EK  NY 


Laure.      Aavprj.       Orsothure.      ^Op 

Besides  the  main  rooms,  the  names  of 
which  occur  so  repeatedly  in  Homer  that 
their  use  is  clear,  several  apartments  meet 
us  in  the  palace  at  Ithaca,  which,  even  in 
the  added  light  shed  upon  the  subject  by 
the  Tirynthian  excavations,  it  is  hopelessly 
difficult  to  identify.  At  the  side  of  the 
Megaron  was  a  laure,  or  passage,  which 
led,  or  at  least  gave  some  access  to  the 
treasury,  and  to  the  armory,  and  which 


.'•»'•  THK    HOMKKIC    I'ALAl'K. 

figures  very  prominently  in  the  dramatic 
slaughter  of  the  Suitors.  This  1ms,  of 
course,  its  analogue  in  the  passage  just  east 
of  -the  great  hall  at  Tiryns,  but  the  plan 
at  that  palace  furnishes  no  clue  to  the  ex- 
act arrangement  at  Ithaca.  Nor  is  there 
any  reason  why  it  should,  whether  Homer 
was  describing  the  actual  abode  of  Odys- 
seus, or  was  drawing  an  imaginary  picture. 
The  Chateau  de  Coney  and  Caerphilly  castle 
have  in  common,  the  moat,  the  curtain  wall, 
and  the  court-yard  of  the  Mediaeval  castle; 
but,  if  one  of  our  authors  of  to-day  described 
either  of  them,  the  antiquary  who,  centuries 
hence,  with  the  text  of  that  author's  descrip- 
tion of  one  of  them  in  his  hand,  scrutinized 
the  ruins  of  the  other,  would  be  puzzled  or 
exasperated  by  the  disposition  of  the  walls 
and  rooms.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  description 
of  the  Manor  of  Woodstock,  or  his  account 
of  Front-de-boeuf's  castle,  while  they  might 
be  explained  by  the  ruins  of  any  building  of 
their  respective  periods,  could  not  be  exactly 
restored  from  those  ruins.  Any  attempt, 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  57 

then,  to  define  the  place  of  the  postern, 
the  orsothure,  high  up  in  the  wall,  through 
which  the  treacherous  servant  escaped 
from  the  Megaron  to  bring  arms  to  the 
Suitors,  is  as  useless  as  it  is  to  fix  the  exact 
position  of  the  armory  from  which  he  took 
the  weapons  and  armor  which  he  bore 
to  the  doomed  wretches  huddled  at  the 
end  of  the  hall.  The  reader  who  wishes 
to  hear  the  case  discussed  will  find  the  ar- 
guments in  the  Journal  of  Hellenic  Stud- 
ies for  1886. 

XII.  -  ARMORY,  TREASURY,    THOLOS. 

Thalamos  hoplon.     OaXa/xo?  o-n-Xw.     Tke- 
©T7crav/>d<?.       Tholos. 


As  we  have  just  said  the  precise  location 
of  the  armory,  from  any  thing  Homer 
says,  is  out  of  the  question.  It  seems  to 
have  been  reached  by  a  passage  —  the  laure 
guarded  by  Eumaios  —  though  we  are  not 
told  that  the  laure  traversed  the  whole 
distance  thereto,  and  it  also  appears  to 


/iS  TIIK    IIOMKKK      I'Al.ArK. 

have  been  somewhere  at  the  end  of  the 
group  of  buildings  which  formed  the  pal- 
ace. Very  likely  both  armory  and  treasury 
were  near  or  beyond  the  thalamos  of 
Odysseus. 

That  the  tholos,  or  round  building,  was 
not  the  treasure  chamber  is  certain  from 
its  peculiar  position,  and  from  the  fact  that 
near  it,  on  a  beam  running  from  it  to  the 
wall  of  the  court,  Odysseus  hanged  the 
treacherous  maid-servants,  after  he  had  slain 
the  Suitors.  Dr.  Joseph's  conjecture  that 
it  was  the  privy,  is  no  doubt  the  true  one.1 

XIII. THE     APPEARANCE    OF    THE    PALACE. 

Let  us  now  put  together  the  details  we 
have  been  studying,  and  try  to  form  a  clear 
picture  of  the  Homeric  stronghold  as  a 
whole.  The  best  method  of  doing  this 
will  be  to  place  ourselves  about  a  thou- 
sand feet  in  the  air,  and  at  some  distance 


1  Joseph,  p.  24-27. 


THE  HOMERIC  PALACE.  59 

from  the  acropolis  and  the  palace  we  wish 
to  survey.  The  drawings,  figures  X  and 
XI,  show  what  we  shall  see  from  such  an 
aerial  standpoint.  In  X  we  are  looking 
north,  but  in  XI  northeast,  and  thus,  in  the 
latter  case,  diagonally  across  the  long  axis 
of  the  castle. 

At  the  top  of  the  limestone  hill,  in  fig- 
ure X,  where  the  grey  stone  crops  out 
through  the  greensward  which  appears 
above  the  trees  around  the  base  of  the  em- 
inence, we  see  the  footings  of  the  mighty, 
roughly  jointed  wall,  its  broad  surfaces, 
and  its  crown  of  parapet  and  battlement. 

At  our  right  we  see  the  approach,  a  long 
slope  keeping  close  to  the  escarpment  of 
the  cliff,  which  is  crowned  by  the  rampart 
wall,  or  herkos.  Where  this  slope  enters 
the  castle  it  makes  a  short  turn,  and  goes 
through  the  wall  by  means  of  a  gate 
flanked  by  two  large  towers.  Beyond  this 
outer  gate,  which  was  purely  and  simply 
for  defence,  we  see  the  lower  or  outer  court 
with  surrounding  stables,  storehouses,  ser- 


li'l  Till-:    HOMKKIC    PALACE. 

vants'  quarters,  etc.,  and  the  stately  pro- 
pylaeum  which  leads  to  the  upper  or  inner 
court,  the  aule. 

Within  the  circuit  of  the  inner  wall, 
which  is  pierced  by  this  propylaeum,  we 
descry  this  court  of  honor,  with  the  Mega- 
ron  in  front  of  us  and  the  shady,  echoing 
aithousai  at  the  sides. 

Beyond  the  Megaron  are  the  roofs  of 
the  women's  rooms,  of  the  thalamoi,  the 
treasury,  the  armory,  and  of  whatever 
other  apartments  there  may  have  been. 

Beyond  these  might  lie  the  garden,  such 
a  garden  as  Homer  has  described  for  the 
palace  of  Alcinous :  u  Without  the  court 
(aule),  near  the  doors,  was  a  great  garden, 
four  acres  in  extent,  and  round  it  on  every 
side  was  driven  a  fence  (herkos).  And  in 
it  grew  tall  nourishing  trees,  pear,  and 
pomegranate  and  apple  trees  with  gleam- 
ing fruit,  and  sweet  fig  and  flourishing 
olive  trees."1 


i  Od.  VII,  112.     See  Blonitield,   Tfir  Formal  (lanlen  h, 
p.  225). 


THE    HOMERIC    PALACE.  <>  1 

As  we  lift  our  eyes  from  the  palace  there 
opens  before  us  the  valley  in  which  it  lies, 
or  the  island  which  it  wholly  or  partly 
dominates.  Forests  rise  on  the  hills  to  the 
right  and  to  the  left,  interspersed  with 
tilled  ground,  and  with  pastures  for  sheep 
and  goats,  with  waving  corn,  and  with 
greensward  browsed  upon  by  black  cattle. 
The  huts,  or  the  more  pretentious  dwel- 
lings of  the  lesser  folk,  crowd  around  the 
base  of  the  acropolis. 

On  the  other  hills  gleam  the  walls  of 
other  castles,  each  with  its  little  ring  of 
tilled  ground  and  smaller  houses,  while 
between  the  strongholds  we  find  stone- 
paved  roads.  Beyond  the  hills  rise  the 
mountains,  blue  and  distant.  Behind  us 
is  the  haven  with  its  swift  ships,  never 
many,  seldom  stationary,  and  its  traffic 
which  again  other  paved  ways  bring  to 
the  castles  and  to  their  towns  which  the 
fear  of  pirates,  the  ever  present  pests  of 
the  uneasy  sea-trade  of  the  time,  has  kept 
back  from  the  beach.  There,  too,  is  the 


<il>  THE    HOMERIC    PALACE. 

sea,  the  wine-colored  sea,  thalatta,  the 
beloved  of  every  Greek  of  old  or  of  the 
classic  time,  the  sea  which,  if  it  would, 
could  tell  us  all  we  long  so  eagerly  to  know 
of  Crete,  Mycenae,  Ithaca,  and  Ilios,  but 
whose  voice,  alas,  is  only  the  unending 
beat  of  its  waves  upon  those  ancient  shores. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


Die  Palaste  des  homerischen  Epos,  mit  Riick- 
sieht  auf  die  Ausgrabungen  Heinrich  Schlie- 
inanns.  Dr.  phil.  D.'  Joseph.  Zvveite  verbes- 
serte  und  vermehrte  Auflage.  Berlin.  Verlag 
von  Georg  Siemens,  1895. 

Schliemann's  Excavations.  Carl  Schuch- 
hardt,  translated  by  Eugene  Sellers.  Macmil- 
lan,  1891. 

Troja,  1893.  Bericht  iiber  die  im  Jahre  1893 
in  Troja  veranstalteten  Ausgrabungen.  Dr. 
W.  Dorpfeld.  Leipzig,  1894. 

Die  Ausgrabungen  in  Troja,  1894.  Dr.  W. 
Dorpfeld.  Mittheilungen  des  kaiserlich  deuts- 
ehen  archaeologischen  Instituts,  athenische 
Abtheilung.  Band  XIX  (1894),  s.  380. 

Ariie,  von  Ferdinand  Noack.  Mittheilungen, 
as  above,  XIX,  405. 

The  Mycenaean  Age.  Dr.  Chrestos  Tsountas 
and  J.  Irving  Manatt.  Boston  and  New  York, 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1897. 

Tiryns  (The  Prehistoric  Palace  of  the  Kings 
of  Tiryns).  Dr.  Henry  Schliemann,  with  chap- 


64  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ters  by  Dr.  Dorpfeld,  New  York,  Charles  Scrib- 
IMT'S  Sons,  1885. 

A  Suggested  Restoration  of  the  Great  Hall  in 
the  Palace  at  Tiryns.  Prof.  J.  II.  Middleton, 
Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  VII  (1880). 

The  Homeric  House  in  Relation  to  the  Re- 
mains at  Tiryns.  R.  C.  Jebb,  Journal  of  Hel- 
lenic Studies,  VII  (1886). 

Art  in  Primitive  Greece.  Georges  Perrot  and 
Charles  Chipiez. 

A  complete  bibliography  of  the  subject  is 
given  in  Dr.  Joseph's  work. 


History  of  the  State   of    Rhode  Island 

and  Providence  Plantations, 

\  636-1 790. 

By  SAMUEL    GREENE  ARNOLD. 
New  Edition.    2  vols.    Octavo.    574  and  600  pp.     $7.50,  net. 


Governor  Arnold's  History  of  Rhode  Island,  based  upon  a 
careful  study  of  documents  in  the  British  State  Paper  Office 
and  in  the  Rhode  Island  State  Archives,  supplemented  by  in- 
vestigations at  Paris  and  The  Hague,  has  from  its  publication 
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ment of  religious  liberty  here  tried  gives  to  this  history  an  im- 
portance far  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  the  State. 


"  One  of  the  best  State  histories  ever  written  is  S.  G.  Arnold's  His- 
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FISKE. 

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GEORGE  P.  FISHER,  Yale  University. 

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ments." —  PROF.  JOHN  A.  DOYLE,  Oxford. 

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MARY    DYER 

OF  RHODE  ISLAND, 

THK  QUARF.K  MARTYR  THAT  WAS  HANGED  ON  BOSTON 
COMMON,  JUNE  1,  1600. 


BY     HORATIO    ROGERS, 
Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Rhode  Island. 

The  author  has  gathered  from  many  sources  the 
scattered  facts  relating  to  the  career  of  Mary  Dyer 
and  woven  them  into  a  detailed  narrative,  so  that 
the  tragic  story  of  her  life  is  now  for  the  first  time 
adequately  told.  By  adding  a  brief  but  compre- 
hensive sketch  of  the  manner  and  sentiments  of 
her  times  he  has  furnished  a  background  or  frame- 
work for  his  subject  which  adds  much  to  the  in 
torest  of  the  volume  by  enabling  the  reader  the 
better  to  understand  the  surroundings  of  the  char- 
acters he  portrays.  The  important  documents  re- 
lating to  her  trial  are  printed  in  the  appendix. 

Cloth,  12mo.,  115  pages.     Price  $1.00  net. 

Sent  postpaid  upon  receipt  of  price  by  the  pub- 
lishers. 


A  Summer  Visit  of  Three  Rhode  Islanders 
to  the  Massachusetts  Bay  in  165L 


BY  HENRY  MELVILLE  KING, 
Pastor  of  the  First  Baptist  Church,  Providence,  K.  I. 


Cloth,  12mo.,  115  pages.     Price  $1.00  net. 

Uniform  with  "MARY  DYEK. 


AN    ACCOUNT    OF    THE    VISIT    OP    DR.    JOHN   CLARKf, 

OBADIAH  HOLMES  AND  JOHN  CRANDALL,  MEMBERS 
OF  THE  BAPTIST  CHURCH  IN  NEWPORT,  B.  I.,  TO 
WILLIAM  WITTER  OF  SWAMPSCOTT,  MASS.,  IN  JULY, 
1651  :  ITS  INNOCENT  PURPOSE  AND  ITS  YAINFUL  CON- 
SEQUENCES. 

"  Dr.  King's  pungent  and  conclusive  essay  is  a 
timely  contribution.  He  adduces  competent  evi- 
dence refuting  the  gratuitous  insinuations  of  Palfrey 
and  Dexter,  who  charged  the  Rhode  Islanders  in 
question  with  sinister  political  motives  and  excused 
their  alleged  maltreatment  on  that  ground.  Cita- 
tions from  original  documents,  with  a  bibliography, 
put  the  reader  in  position  to  verify  the  allegations  of 
the  author."—  The  Watchman. 


Sent  postpaid  upon  receipt  of  the  price  by  the 
publishers. 


Revolutionary  Defences  in  Rhode  Island, 

AN  HISTORICAL  ACCOUNT  or  THE  FORTIFICATIONS  AND 
BEACONS  ERECTED  DURING  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLU- 
TION, WITH  MUSTER  ROLLS  OF  THE  COMPANIES  STA- 
TIONED ALUM,  THE  SHORES  OF  NARRAGANSETT  BAT, 
WITH  MAPS,  PLANK  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


BY    EDWARD    FIELD. 

Paat  President  of  the  Rhode  Island  Society  of  the  Sons  of  the 
American  Revolution. 


CLOTH  <><TAVO.  WITH  :*.»  Ii.i.t  >TUATIONS  AND  Two  MAPS. 
PRICE  $2.25  NET. 


This  volume  contains  an  account  of  the  various  works  of 
defence  erected  !n  the  State  of  Rhode  Island  during  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  showing  where  and  under  what  circumstances 
they  were  built,  and  the  names  of  the  officers  and  enlisted  men 
located  at  many  of  them  at  various  periods  of  the  war. 

For  nearly  three  years  the  British  Army  was  located  within 
the  State  and  one  of  the  notable  battles  was  fought  within  its 
territory.  The  war  map  of  this  battle  of  Rhode  Island,  now 
preserved  In  the  State  archives,  has  been  especially  reproduced 
for  this  work,  and  is  shown  in  its  entirety  for  the  first  time. 

The  work  is  profusely  illustrated  with  plans  and  views  of 
these  old  earthworks,  together  with  illustrations  of  the  styles 
of  equipments  and  fac-similes  of  enlistment  papers  for  the  Con- 
tinental Army.  A  Map  of  the  State  of  Rhode  Island  is  inserted 
showing  the  location  of  each  fort,  beacon,  and  coast  guard  sta- 
tion described  in  the  text. 

Muster  rolls  and  company  lists  containing  the  names  of  more 
than  seven  hundred  officers  and  enlisted  men,  many  of  which 
have  been  hitherto  inaccessible,  are  here  presented.  The  records 
of  Rhode  Island  Soldiers  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution  are  scat- 
tered and  incomplete,  and  the  names  contained  in  this  book  will 
be  of  great  assistance  to  those  who  desire  to  ascertain  the  service 
of  Rhode  Island  Soldiers,  or  to  establish  their  right  to  member, 
ship  in  the  hereditary  patriotic  societies,  for  the  names  have 
been  carefully  transcribed  and  reference  is  given  in  each  case 
where  the  original  master  or  pay  roll  may  be  found. 

Sent  postpaid  upon  receipt  of  price  by  the  publishers. 


NEW  ENGLAND  WILD  FLOWERS 
AND  THEIR  SEASONS. 


BY    W    WHITMAN   BAILEY. 

PROFESSOR   OF    BOTANY    IN    BROWN    UNIVERSITY. 


Cloth,  16mo.     Uniform  with  "R.  I.  Wild  Flowers." 
7o  cents  net. 


From  long  wanderings  afield  the  author  has 
caught  the  charm  of  the  varying  moods  of  our 
New  England  year  and  pictures  them  for  the  reader 
with  sympathetic  touch. 

The  characteristics  of  the  conspicuous  and  dom- 
inant flowers  of  the  months  are  sketched  in  broad 
lines,  rendering  identification  easy. 

The  flowers  of  the  White  and  Green  Mountains 
—  our  alpine  flora  —  receive  separate  treatment,  as 
do  also  the  flowers  of  the  sea -shore  —  our  coast 
flora. 

Sent  postpaid  upon  receipt  of  price  by  the  pub- 
lishers. 


SAMUELL  GORTON: 


FIRST  SETTLER  OF  WARWICK,  R.  I. 
A  FORGOTTEN  FOUNDER  OF  OUR  LIBERTIES 


BY   LEWIS  G.  JANES,  M.  A. 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE    BROOKLYN   ETHICAL  ASSOCIATION 


Cloth,  12mo.     Price  $1.00  net.     Uniform 

with  "Mary  Dyer"  and  "Summer  Visit." 


A  careful,  conscientious  and  sympathetic  study  of 
one  of  the  most  unique  figures  in  our  colonial  his- 
tory, and  of  some  of  its  most  exciting  episodes. 

It  is  the  first  o^atematic  attempt  to  give  candid 
and  judicial  interpretation  of  Gorton's  peculiar  re- 
ligious views,  and  is  of  equal  interest  to  the  theolo- 
gian and  historical  student. 


Sent  postpaid  upon  receipt  of  price  by  the  pub- 
lishers. 


ESEK  HOPKINS: 

Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Continental  Navy  1775  to  1778: 

Master  Mariner;  Politician;  Brigadier-General; 

Naval  Officer;  and  Philanthropist. 

BY  EDWARD  FIELD,   A.  B. 

Author  of  "Revolutionary  Defences  in  Rhode  Island,"  ''The 
Colonial  Tavern,"  "Tax  Lists  of  the  Town  of  Providence." 


EDITION  LIMITED  TO  THREE  HUNDRED  NUMBERED  COPIES. 

OCTAVO,  CLOTH.         ILLUSTRATED  WITH  FIFTEEN  PLATES 

AND  A  MAP.         PRICE,  $3.00  NET. 


The  story  of  the  life  of  Capt.  Esek  Hopkins,  the 
first  commander  of  the  American  navy,  has  never 
before  been  told.  Mr.  Field  has  used  Hopkins'  own 
papers  and  records  kept  during  his  connection  with 
the  navy,  extracts  from  ships'  logs,  and  records  in 
the  Department  of  State  at  Washington.  The  work 
treats  of  the  origin  of  the  American  navy  and  its  first 
expeditions,  discloses  the  reasons  which  operated 
against  the  success  of  Hopkins  as  a  naval  com- 
mander, and  exposes  the  plot  which  resulted  in  his 
removal  from  the  command  of  the  navy. 

The  present  work  is  the  result  of  a  patient  and 
disinterested  study  of  the  character  of  the  man  who 
for  more  than  a  hundred  years  has  been  the  subject 
of  the  most  scathing  criticism,  and  the  facts  as  set 
forth  in  this  work  will  enable  one  to  judge  for  him- 
self what  manner  of  man  he  was.  The  work  is  a 
timely  contribution  to  the  study  of  the  navy. 

Included  in  the  text  are  names  of  officers,  marines 
and  seamen  in  the  navy  of  the  Revolution  never  be- 
fore printed,  which  will  connect  with  Revolutionary 
service  many  persons  not  heretofore  associated  with 
that  crisis  in  American  history. 


NEARLY  READY... 

EARLY 
CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

BY  NORMAN  M.  ISHAM  AND  ALBERT  P.  BROWN. 


ILLUSTRATED  WITH  A  MAP  AND  OVER  ONE  HUNDRED  DRAWINGS. 
LARGE  8vo.     UNIFORM  WITH  "EARLY  RHODE  ISLAND  HOUSES," 

BY  THE  SAME  AUTHORS.       PRICE,   $2.50  NET. 


This  book  treats  the  early  houses  of  Connecticut 
in  the  same  way  in  which  its  predecessor  treated  the 
dwellings  of  Rhode  Island. 

The  same  accuracy  of  measurement  and  drawing 
and  the  same  careful  description  of  the  early  work 
characterize  the  new  volume. 

The  work  describes  a  large  number  of  houses  in 
Hartford  and  its  neighborhood,  in  New  London,  and 
in  New  Haven  and  the  towns  confederated  with  it. 

Much  new  information  will  be  found  in  the  chap- 
ter on  Construction,  and  the  relation  with  English 
work  is  considered  in  the  light  of  further  study  of 
examples  in  the  old  country. 

Edition  limited- 


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o 

3O 


11$ 


